Jamie was cute, too, Annie thought as she followed Liz out of the staffroom. At least usually he was, but today was the first day they’d been apart since he’d been born. Please, oh, please, let him be enjoying himself, she prayed. Please, let him not be missing me. If he’s unhappy and miserable, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I have to work. We need the money.
‘I’m sorry, what did you say?’ she asked, suddenly realising that Liz was gazing at her expectantly.
‘Only that I was offering you the choice of the century,’ the girl replied, her lips twitching. ‘Do you want me to assist when you examine Mrs Douglas, or would you prefer me to assist while you examine Mrs Gill?’
Annie stared at her suspiciously. ‘I know Mrs Douglas is suffering from acute constipation after her hysterectomy. What’s wrong with Mrs Gill?’
‘Would you believe acute constipation, too?’ Liz chuckled, and Annie laughed.
‘Great choice. Actually, that reminds me of something that happened at my last hospital…’
She came to a halt. Mr Mountain Man was talking to Tom Brooke at the top of the ward. Nothing unusual about that, of course. Patients’ relatives often wanted a quiet word with the specialist registrar, but it was the way Mr Mountain Man was talking to Dr Brooke. Or rather the way Tom was listening to him. Intently, deeply, almost…almost reverentially.
An awful thought crept into Annie’s mind. A thought which was crazy—insane—but…
‘Liz. That man talking to Dr Brooke. Who is he?’
The sister turned in the direction of her gaze and smiled. ‘That’s Gideon Caldwell. Our consultant.’
The man she’d met on the stairs was Obs and Gynae’s consultant? Oh, heavens.
‘Liz, Mr Caldwell’s wife—she…’ Annie swallowed convulsively. ‘She wouldn’t happen to be a patient on the ward, would she?’
‘Good heavens, no. Gideon’s a widower—has been for five years. Actually, it was terribly tragic. She died of ovarian cancer two years after they were married.’
Not married, but a widower. And not just a widower, but a widower whose wife had tragically died of ovarian cancer. Oh, hell.
‘Hey, are you OK?’ Liz continued, her plump face suddenly concerned. ‘You’ve gone a really funny colour.’
Was it any wonder? Annie thought wretchedly. What must he think of her? At best that she was neurotic. At worst…She didn’t even want to think about the worst.
Maybe he wouldn’t recognise her. Maybe she’d look so different in her white coat that he wouldn’t recognise her.
But he did. As he began walking down the ward, she saw him pause in mid-stride and then keep on coming. And, to her horror, Dr Dunwoody joined him.
‘Annie, what’s wrong?’ Liz asked, looking even more worried. ‘You’re not going to faint, are you? Look, maybe you should sit down in the staffroom…’
The staffroom sounded good. The store cupboard sounded even better. Preferably for the next three months.
Oh, get a grip, Annie. You can hardly spend the next three months hiding in the store cupboard whenever Gideon Caldwell does his rounds. No, but she could hide in there today, and by tomorrow—OK, so it was a very long shot—by tomorrow he might have calmed down.
‘I think you’re right, Liz,’ she said, beginning to back her way up the ward. ‘I think I might just sit down for a couple of minutes.’
‘OK, but—Annie, be careful.’
‘It’s probably just something I ate…’
‘No, I mean—Annie, watch out!’
Too late Annie saw what the sister had been trying to tell her—that the afternoon tea trolley was right behind her. Too late she felt her hip catch it and whirled round quickly, but the damage was done. The trolley toppled over, sending its cups and saucers tumbling to the floor with a resounding crash.
For a second she stared in horror at the devastation she’d created, then turned to find Dr Dunwoody glaring at her furiously, Liz looking dumbfounded and Gideon Caldwell…Was he trying very hard not to laugh? It looked as though he was trying very hard not to laugh.
And suddenly it was all too much. The whole awful, rotten day was too much, and to her utter mortification she burst into tears.
‘I’m sorry—so sorry,’ she sobbed, scrabbling wildly in her pocket for a handkerchief. ‘I’ll get a brush and pan—clean it up…’
She didn’t get a chance to. Before she could move a firm hand had grasped her by the elbow and Gideon Caldwell was propelling her out of the ward and down the corridor.
‘Sir, I have to clean it up,’ she protested as he steered her into his consulting room and towards a chair. ‘I can’t just leave—’
‘One of the cleaners will do it.’
‘But it was my fault,’ she said, dashing a hand across her wet cheeks. ‘I should—’
‘Tea or coffee?’ he asked, opening a cupboard and pulling out two mugs.
‘Neither—I can’t. Dr Dunwoody—’
‘Tea or coffee—black or white—with sugar or without?’
He clearly wasn’t going to take no for an answer. He equally clearly wasn’t used to being refused. ‘Coffee, please,’ she said miserably. ‘Black, no sugar.’
‘Good,’ he said with a nod, switching on the kettle. ‘Now we’re getting somewhere.’
Or merely postponing the inevitable, she thought, miserably blowing her nose. The moment when he told her his ward couldn’t afford a clumsy idiot like her. The moment when he fired her. And she couldn’t afford to be fired. Simply couldn’t.
‘Please, I know I should have been watching where I was going—but, please, won’t you give me another chance? I’m not normally so clumsy, and I don’t make a habit of bursting into tears—’
‘I know you don’t,’ he interrupted, spooning some coffee into the mugs. ‘The woman I met on the stairs didn’t strike me as a wimp. A little strange, perhaps, but certainly not a wimp.’
Oh, cripes, he was bypassing that nightmare on the ward and going straight to her even bigger disaster on the stairs. ‘Mr Caldwell—’
‘The name’s Gideon. I’m only Mr Caldwell in front of patients.’
She would have preferred to call him Mr Caldwell. After what she’d said to him earlier, she’d infinitely have preferred to call him Mr Caldwell.
‘What I said to you on the stairs…’ she said, opting out of calling him anything at all. ‘I can only apologise. I made a mistake—’
‘You thought I was hitting on you, didn’t you?’ he observed. ‘You saw my wedding ring, decided my offer to help was actually a thinly disguised invitation to a future affair, and that’s why you chewed my head off.’
Lord, but it sounded dreadful when he put it like that, but she couldn’t deny it, much as she longed to.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘What interests me more is why you should jump to that conclusion,’ he said, holding out a mug of coffee to her, then sitting down. ‘I’ve been racking my brains off and on all day but I can’t for the life of me remember saying anything which might have suggested I was some sort of sexual predator.’
Scarlet colour darkened her cheeks. ‘You didn’t—truly, you didn’t. It was me. I was stupid—overreacted.’
Yes, but why? he wanted to ask. OK, so she was a very pretty girl, but surely married men weren’t constantly harassing her?
Or maybe it wasn’t married men, he suddenly thought. Maybe it was one particular married man who had put those dark shadows under her eyes, made her so thin and pale. To his surprise, the thought angered him. A lot.
Well, of course it did, he told himself. He was the head of a very busy department and if a member of his staff was having problems it was up to him to investigate before the problem affected their work. And it didn’t make a blind bit of difference if the member of staff in question possessed a pair of the largest, bluest eyes he’d ever seen, and short curly hair the colour of sunripened corn. It didn’t.
‘And I know I shouldn’t have said what I did, bu
t if you could just give me another chance.’
The blue eyes were fixed on him, unhappy, pleading, and he gazed at her blankly. What on earth was she talking about? What second chance? And then the penny dropped.
‘Good grief, Annie, I’m not going to fire you.’
‘You’re not?’ she said faintly, and he shook his head.
‘For one thing, Woody says you’re an excellent doctor.’
‘She does?’
‘Mind you, that was before the tea trolley went west so she’s probably revised her opinion by now.’ He’d hoped for a chuckle. He’d hoped at the very least for a small smile, but she simply gazed at him miserably, and he frowned. ‘Annie, I clearly said something to you earlier that deeply upset you, and I do wish you’d tell me what it was.’
What could she say? That it wasn’t what he’d said, but the fact that she’d thought he was married that had made her so angry? He wanted her to explain, and she didn’t want to explain. Her private life was just that. Private.
‘I’m sorry I was so rude to you, and I’m sorry about the tea trolley,’ she muttered. ‘I promise it won’t happen again.’
‘Annie—’
‘Can I go now, please?’
He stared at her in frustration. He couldn’t force her to stay and drink her coffee. Couldn’t hold her hostage until she told him what—or who—had caused those deep shadows under her deep blue eyes. With a sigh, he nodded.
‘Just remember I’m here if you ever need someone to talk to,’ he called after her as she hurried out of his consulting room. ‘No strings—no hidden agenda.’
She didn’t answer him—couldn’t. He’d been a lot kinder to her than she deserved, but she didn’t want him to be kind. She didn’t want him to see her at all. She wanted anonymity. Anonymity was safe. Being noticed wasn’t. She had her son, and now this job. She didn’t want anything or anyone else in her life.
‘Did he fire you?’ Liz asked as soon as she saw her. ‘I didn’t think he would,’ she continued with relief when Annie shook her head. ‘It was an accident, and accidents can happen to anyone, can’t they?’
To me more than most, Annie thought ruefully, then remembered. ‘What did Dr Dunwoody say?’
Liz’s eyes rolled heavenwards. ‘You don’t want to know.’
‘As bad as that?’
‘Just be grateful your shift’s over.’
Annie glanced at the ward clock. Liz was right. It was almost a quarter past four. She had to go. David had offered to collect Jamie from the day-care centre and to look after him until she got home, but the last thing her brother needed was a small boy under his feet. Especially if that small boy was being difficult because he’d had a rotten day.
He hadn’t. In fact, she could scarcely get a word in edgewise while Jamie excitedly told her about the toys he’d played with, the Viking longship he’d made from egg boxes and the lunch he’d enjoyed.
‘I said you were worrying needlessly, didn’t I?’ David grinned when she finally managed to get Jamie into bed.
‘I’m his mother,’ she protested. ‘Worrying goes with the territory.’
‘I’m his uncle, and I say you worry too much.’
She did—she knew she did—just as she also knew she would never change.
‘How was your day?’ she asked, deliberately changing the subject.
‘I didn’t get the promotion.’
‘Oh, David…’
‘To be honest, I never really expected to. Admin and I have never really seen eye to eye, so…’ He shrugged. ‘It’s no big deal, Annie.’
But it was. Her brother was a gifted obs and gynae specialist registrar, and if anyone deserved being made consultant at the Merkland Memorial it was him. He’d been so good to her, too. Bringing her back to Glasgow when she’d told him she was pregnant, insisting she stay with him after Jamie was born, and it hadn’t been his idea for her to move out and get a place of her own.
‘I can’t—and I won’t—live off you, David,’ she’d told him when he’d protested at her decision—and had protested even more when he’d seen the flat. ‘It’s time I was independent.’
He’d agreed eventually, had even paid her first month’s rent, and now he hadn’t got the promotion he deserved because the administration at the Merkland didn’t like his innovative ideas.
‘David, couldn’t you—?’
‘You haven’t told me how you got on at the Belfield.’
Who was changing the subject now? she thought, but he clearly didn’t want to talk about his own problems so obediently she told him. Told him every single, humiliating incident, and by the end, to her surprise, she was laughing about it as much as he was.
‘Honestly, love, when you mess things up, you really go for it,’ he exclaimed, wiping the laughter from his eyes. ‘This Gideon bloke sounds all right, though. How old is he—fifty—sixty—nearing retirement?’
‘Late thirties, I’d guess, but I don’t see—’
‘Good-looking—pot ugly? Look, just answer the question, OK?’ David continued when she looked even more confused.
‘Ordinary-looking, I guess, but tall—very tall—with brown hair. Well, it’s more sort of beech nut brown, really,’ she amended, ‘with little flecks of grey at the sides. His eyes are brown, too. A kind of hazel brown—’
‘Not that you noticed, of course.’
Her brother’s eyes were dancing, and she gave him a very hard stare. ‘David…’
‘Pretty junior doctor Annie Hart arrives for her first day at work and falls headlong into the arms of tall, ordinary—but apparently not all that ordinary—consultant Gideon Caldwell. Their eyes meet across a bedpan—’
‘And he hits her with it because she’s the ward dork,’ she finished dryly. ‘David, Mr Caldwell would never be interested in me in a million years. And even if he was, I certainly wouldn’t be interested in him.’
‘Annie, not all obs and gynae consultants are rats,’ her brother protested, ‘and giving up on men because of what happened to you in Manchester is crazy. You’re only twenty-eight. That’s way too young to have stopped dating.’
‘You date enough for both of us,’ she said with a laugh, then quickly put her hand up to her brother’s lips to silence him. ‘David, you’re my big brother, and I love you dearly, but I’ve got my son, and you, and now I’ve got a job. I don’t need anything else.’
And she didn’t, she thought when David went home still muttering under his breath.
She’d vowed four years ago never to let another man into her life. Never to let anyone get close enough to hurt her the way Nick had, and she’d meant it. She’d loved him so much. Believed him when he’d said he loved her. Trusted him when he’d said he was getting a divorce. And then he’d walked away, leaving her with nothing.
No, not with nothing, she thought wryly, picking up one of Jamie’s toys. Jamie had been the accidental result of one of their nights of love-making, and despite everything she could never regret him.
Yes, the last four years had been tough, but things were starting to look up. Gideon Caldwell could have fired her today, and he hadn’t. Jamie could have hated the day-care centre, and he’d loved it. It was going to be all right. If she could just hold onto this job, everything might finally be all right.
CHAPTER TWO
‘DON’T want to go to the day centre. Want to stay home with Mummy.’
Annie glanced at the kitchen clock then back to her son’s truculent face with a groan. She didn’t need this, not today. Not when Gideon had asked her to sit in on his morning clinic for the very first time.
‘I thought you liked the centre. You said the toys were terrific—’
‘Don’t want to go. Don’t like it there any more.’
Annie put his cereal bowl in the sink, her brain working overtime.
‘I could collect you early today,’ she suggested. ‘I should be finished at the hospital around two o’clock, and after I’ve done some quick shopping—’ frantic,
more like ‘—I could collect you at three.’
Jamie didn’t look impressed. In fact, he looked even more truculent. ‘I’ve got a sore tummy.’
‘I’m not surprised considering how fast you ate your breakfast.’
‘I mean a really sore tummy. And a sore head.’
She stared at him uncertainly. He’d been perfectly fine when he’d got up this morning, and he looked perfectly fine now, but…
‘Wait here while Mummy gets her thermometer,’ she ordered.
‘Don’t want the termoneter,’ Jamie yelled after her. ‘Want to stay home.’
And I’m the worst mother in the world, Annie thought when she’d taken his temperature and found it to be normal. It was obvious what was happening. The novelty of going to the centre had worn off and this was Jamie’s way of telling her he felt abandoned, but what could she do? She had to work to keep a roof over their heads. She couldn’t keep on relying on David for the rest of her life.
‘Sweetheart, Mummy has to work—you know she does.’
‘You never did when we stayed with Uncle David,’ Jamie argued, his face beginning to crumple.
‘Look, if you’re a good boy and go to the centre, I’ll buy you that pudding you like for tea,’ she said swiftly. ‘The one with the chocolate bits in it?’
And now I’m bribing him, she thought, seeing Jamie’s face miraculously clear. Bribing my own son. But I don’t have time for this. Dr Dunwoody is only just speaking to me after the tea trolley disaster on Monday, and if I’m late…
‘Can I have chips for my tea, too?’ Jamie asked as she helped him on with his coat. ‘And beans—can I have beans with my chips?’
Beans and chips, and chocolate pudding. The hospital nutritionist would faint clean away at the sound of that diet, but if she said no she’d never get Jamie to the centre.
‘OK, but only for today as a special treat,’ she replied, salving her conscience. ‘Now, remember—’
‘Not to sing or shout going down the stairs, ’cos Mrs Patterson will come out wearing her grumpy face.’
Annie’s heart constricted as she stared down at her son. He was only four. He should be able to run and play whenever he wanted, but their landlady had made her feelings only too plain when they’d moved into the flat above hers.
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